Major League Baseball stadiums have been the site of a series of unfortunate accidents in recent years in which fans seated in the upper deck have toppled over the safety railing and fallen dozens of feet onto the concourse below. The most infamous of these incidents occurred in 2011, when Texas Rangers fan Shannon Stone fell to his death while reaching over the upper-deck guardrail to try to catch a ball tossed into the stands by Josh Hamilton.

Although not as highly publicized, Atlanta’s Turner Field has rather shockingly been the site of three such fatal falls in just the last eight years alone. Most recently, in August 2015, Gregory Murrey fell over a guardrail to his death after losing his balance when standing up from his second row, upper-deck seat.

In a new lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Murrey’s family seeks to hold the Braves legally accountable for his death, arguing that the team failed to take the basic precautions necessary to protect fans from injury in the upper deck. In particular, the suit contends that had the safety railing at Turner Field been installed at a more appropriate height, Murrey’s unnecessary death could have been avoided.

Interestingly, in addition to suing the Braves, the lawsuit also names MLB itself as a defendant in the case, claiming that the league has consistently failed to require its teams to install sufficient safety railing in the upper deck. As a result, Tuesday’s lawsuit may bring renewed awareness to a fan-safety issue that, at least in recent years, has taken a backseat to injuries resulting from foul balls or broken bats flying into the stands.

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In the aftermath of a series of high-profile fan injuries at major-league ballparks this past summer, a federal class-action lawsuit — Payne v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball — was filed against all 30 Major League Baseball teams this past July. The suit sought to force all MLB franchises to implement additional safety mechanisms to help protect fans from foul balls and broken bats, asking the court in particular to order the league to ensure that foul-pole-to-foul-pole netting was installed in all 30 of its stadiums to protect fans all the way down the foul lines from the dangers of flying objects.

As I noted at the time the lawsuit was filed, the plaintiffs’ odds of winning the case appeared to be slim, as MLB had a number of potentially strong defenses to assert on its teams’ behalf. It was not particularly surprising, then, that MLB formally asked the court to dismiss the Payne lawsuit last November, relying on several of these arguments in the process.

MLB’s legal efforts were rewarded this past Friday when Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers — the California federal judge presiding over the case — ruled that 25 of the 30 MLB franchises should be dismissed from the Payne lawsuit. Moreover, because Judge Rogers’ opinion also suggested that the five remaining MLB teams may eventually be dismissed from the case as well, it appears MLB’s partial victory in the lawsuit could soon become a complete triumph in the not-too-distant future.

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Although the potential health risks of using smokeless tobacco are by now well established, countless Major League Baseball players nevertheless continue to use these products both on and off the playing field, much to the chagrin of MLB. And despite these dangers, the league has, to date, been largely unable to convince the Major League Baseball Players Association to agree to prohibit players from using tobacco products in MLB stadiums.

Recently, however, MLB’s efforts to curtail its players’ use of smokeless tobacco products gained new momentum from a rather unlikely source: local municipal governments. In recent months, three major-league cities – Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco – have each passed new laws formally banning the use of smokeless tobacco in public facilities, including MLB ballparks. Meanwhile, with a similar tobacco ban set to take effect throughout the entire state of California in 2017, along with comparable legislation currently making its way through the city governments of Chicago, New York, Toronto, and Washington D.C., smokeless tobacco use could soon be legally prohibited in more than one-third of MLB’s 30 ballparks.

When these local ordinances were initially enacted, many were skeptical that the laws would actually deter MLB players from using tobacco products, since any player intent on ignoring the new prohibitions would easily be able to afford to pay a relatively modest monetary fine in exchange for breaking the law.

However, while the threat of punishment under these local laws alone may not be enough to change players’ behavior, these ordinances have created a new avenue for MLB to attack the problem, one that could potentially let the league punish players for their tobacco use.

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Adam LaRoche’s unexpected retirement announcement on Tuesday – along with the many twists and turns that followed – dominated the baseball headlines last week. To recap, on Wednesday we learned that rather than walking away from the game voluntarily due to a perceived diminution in talent or lack of desire, LaRoche instead elected to retire after being informed by Chicago White Sox Vice President Ken Williams that LaRoche’s son Drake was no longer welcome in the team’s clubhouse (or, at least, was not welcome to accompany LaRoche quite as frequently as he had in 2015). Then on Thursday, reports emerged that the Major League Baseball Players Association was considering whether to file a grievance against the White Sox on LaRoche’s behalf.

It’s currently difficult to determine exactly how strong a legal case LaRoche might have against the White Sox because there is still a lot we don’t know about what agreement, if any, LaRoche reached with Chicago regarding the extent to which his son could accompany him to games. For instance, on Friday, White Sox union representative Adam Eaton told the media that LaRoche’s contract with the team did in fact include a provision regarding his son’s access to the clubhouse. Meanwhile, other reports have suggested that any agreement between LaRoche and the team regarding his son was limited to a verbal understanding, and was not embodied in his written contract.

Ultimately, this distinction between a written and verbal agreement is likely to determine whether LaRoche has any real hope of prevailing in a grievance against the White Sox, should he choose to pursue one.

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Once Major League Baseball announced last month that New York Mets relief pitcher Jenrry Mejia had been permanently suspended from the sport after testing positive for performance enhancing drugs for the third time, it was probably only a matter of time until Mejia threatened to pursue legal action against the league. Even though Mejia can petition commissioner Rob Manfred for reinstatement next year, the earliest that he would be allowed to return to the playing field would be 2018. Considering that Mejia only appeared in seven games last season for the Mets — between serving his initial, 80-game suspension and subsequent, 162-game suspension for PED use — by the time Mejia is potentially eligible to return to action he would have effectively missed the better part of a minimum of three seasons, a difficult absence for anyone to overcome.

So given that, it’s not particularly surprising that Mejia announced last week that he intends to challenge his lifetime suspension. In particular, Mejia claims that officials from MLB threatened him in 2015 following his second positive PED test — results that he insists were inaccurate — allegedly telling him that the league would “find a way to find a third positive” if Mejia appealed his 162-game suspension. Even though Mejia did not appeal that second suspension, he is nevertheless now accusing MLB of conspiring to drive him from the game.

Moreover, Mejia’s attorney, Vincent White, went one step further on Friday, announcing that he’d spoken to a witness who claims that MLB has previously hired third party contractors to hack into players’ social-media accounts in order to look for evidence linking the players to PEDs. (MLB has, not surprisingly, officially denied all of these accusations.)

Unfortunately for Mejia, despite the attention-grabbing nature of these allegations, his odds of successfully overturning his permanent suspension appear to be pretty slim.

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When Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association agreed to terms on a new domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse policy last August, it was clear that the first few cases to arise under the new agreement would take on heightened importance. As I noted at the time, under the agreement MLB and the union agreed that any past suspension — or lack thereof — for an act of domestic violence would not serve as a precedent in any future cases arising under the new policy. Instead, the initial suspensions handed out by Commissioner Manfred under the agreement would establish a new baseline against which the fairness of any future punishment would be judged.

As a result, Tuesday’s news that MLB had officially suspended Aroldis Chapman for the first 30 games of the 2016 season established a significant milestone, marking the first case in which a player has been suspended without pay under baseball’s new domestic violence agreement. This is all the more noteworthy considering that Chapman was never actually charged for the incident that led to his suspension. Although baseball’s new policy clearly permits MLB to punish players in cases that do not result in criminal prosecution, it wasn’t clear to what extent the league would be willing to suspend someone for an incident that did not result in the player being charged with a crime.

Further, because Chapman declared shortly after his suspension was announced on Tuesday that he would not be appealing the punishment, MLB has avoided the possibility that the 30-game suspension could be overturned by an arbitrator, creating an immediate precedent for future cases.

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When news reports broke in November that Jose Reyes had been arrested in Hawaii for an alleged incident of domestic violence, many assumed that he would be the first test case under Major League Baseball’s new domestic violence policy. As I noted at the time the agreement was announced last August, both MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association have agreed to a new set of rules to govern cases in which a player has been accused of domestic violence, sexual assault, or child abuse.

Among the provisions in the new policy was one giving Commissioner Manfred the power to place any player accused of domestic violence on paid administrative leave for up to seven days. This provision was intended to give the league sufficient time to investigate the alleged incident before deciding on an appropriate level of punishment, while at the same time preventing a player involved in a domestic incident from appearing on the playing field.

Given the seven-day time limit of any such interim suspension, MLB’s announcement on Tuesday that the league was indefinitely placing Reyes on paid leave until after his pending criminal proceedings in Hawaii have been resolved initially took some by surprise. Indeed, considering that Reyes’s criminal trial in Hawaii isn’t scheduled to begin until April 4th, the leave that MLB announced on Tuesday will undoubtedly extend well beyond the time limit seemingly authorized under the new domestic violence policy.

In reality, however, although many observers – including me – missed this detail when MLB first announced its new domestic violence policy in August, the new policy agreed to by the league and union did in fact include an additional provision that applies to Reyes’ case.

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Considering the potential ramifications of a victory by the plaintiffs in the Garber v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball lawsuit, the odds always favored Major League Baseball eventually reaching a settlement in the case. Indeed, considering that the sport’s entire existing broadcast model was under attack – with the lawsuit alleging that MLB violates federal antitrust law by preventing its teams from competing in the local and national broadcast marketplaces – allowing the Garber case to proceed to trial would have been extremely risky for the league.

As a result, it was no great surprise to learn that MLB did in fact reach a tentative settlement agreement with the Garber plaintiffs on Tuesday morning, just minutes before a two-week trial was slated to begin in the lawsuit.

The terms of the deal will not be officially announced until after the attorneys have committed the tentative agreement to writing. Nevertheless, various media reports have revealed a number of details regarding the proposed settlement. In particular, it appears that by agreeing to create new viewing options for fans, and lowering the price for its MLB.TV package, the league has succeeded – at least for the time being – in preserving its oft-criticized blackout policy.

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Next week, in a federal courtroom in New York City, the future of televised baseball will be at stake. On one side, attorneys representing baseball fans at-large will contend that MLB’s existing broadcast policies violate the Sherman Antitrust Act by illegally limiting competition and consumer choice, ultimately increasing the price we pay for televised baseball. On the other side, lawyers for Major League Baseball will seek to preserve the status quo by arguing that the league’s restrictions increase both the quantity and quality of games aired on television, to the benefit of fans.

The case — Garber v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball — may not be the highest-profile lawsuit currently proceeding against MLB. But from the league’s perspective, it’s almost certainly the most important.

Long-time Fangraphs readers are probably already familiar with the Garber suit, as we’ve previously covered the case on a number of different occasions. By way of a brief recap, though, the lawsuit essentially alleges that MLB violates federal antitrust law by assigning its teams exclusive local broadcast territories (the same rules that also give rise to MLB’s infamous blackout policy).

Not only do the plaintiffs allege that the creation of these exclusive territories illegally prevents MLB teams from competing for television revenue in each others’ home markets, but they also contend the rules restrict teams from competing with the league itself in the national broadcast marketplace (preventing teams from signing their own national television contracts, for instance, or offering their own out-of-market pay-per-view services in competition with MLB Extra Innings and MLB.TV).

Thus, the Garber suit presents a direct challenge to MLB’s existing television business model, one that could revolutionize the way in which baseball is broadcast in the future.

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Over the holidays, Al Jazeera America released an explosive, undercover report on doping in professional sports. Included in the story were secretly recorded interviews with Charlie Sly, a pharmacist who boasted of having provided illegal performance enhancing drugs to numerous professional athletes.

Among the many athletes that Sly claimed to have supplied with PEDs were several baseball players, including Ryan Howard and Ryan Zimmerman. According to Sly, both players bought and used the drug Delta-2, a banned hormone supplement.

Initially, both Howard and Zimmerman issued a joint statement staunchly denying the allegations. The two have now gone one step further, each filing suit against Al Jazeera on Tuesday evening for defamation.

However, while filing suit may provide a boost to Howard and Zimmerman in the short-term in their public relations battle against the network, the players are incurring some degree of risk by initiating legal action, and ultimately appear unlikely to prevail in their respective cases.

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